mgo.licio.us

"The face of the operation is Briatore (referred to exclusively in the film by his colleagues and angry, chanting detractors as "Flavio"), an anthropomorphic radish who spends most of his time at QPR plotting to fire all of the managers."

At press time, Harbaugh had sent Michigan’s athletic department an envelope containing a heavily annotated seating chart, a list of the 63,000 seat views he had found unsatisfactory, and a glowing 70-page report on section 25, row 12, seat 9, which he claimed is “exactly what the great sport of football is all about.”

Interesting comments from Chris Spielman on Columbus radio. Very interesting because Spielman is a guy who really does know what the hell he's seeing out there, and he does not like it. Sure, he's a Buckeye, but you get the feeling in reading this that Chris has tremendous respect for the tradition of Michigan football and would genuinely like to see us rebuild a defense worthy of the rivalry.

I agree that Spielman knows what he's talking about, but he always goes a little too far and says things that don't make sense. Like this:

They're all great kids. I had a chance to meet with a bunch of them. They practice hard, they play hard, and they're tough, but it comes down to one thing when you're talking about playing at a high level like Michigan is used to playing at, and that's talent. And they have zero on defense. One kid, the Martin kid. Other than that, a lot of guys would be nice little subs at Indiana.

That jumped out to me as well. It's one thing to say Mike Martin is the only player on the defense who would start at OSU (pretty reasonable claim, IMO), but to say the others wouldn't even start at Indiana?? Not so much.

It's amazing to me how this board claims to be the "logical, well informed" segment of the Michigan fans, and then gets mad when a guy who knows ten times more about football than any of his says that our defensive players, on the worst defense in Michigan football history, who can't tackle, can't contain, can't keep up, can't make one stop, wouldn't start at Indiana.

I'm gonna go out on a limb. Martin would start at OSU or Indiana. Not one other player on our defense would start at Indiana today. Seriously how could you even question that?

D-bag. Isn't there a Tea Party meeting you should be attending somewhere?

Speilman was a heck of a football player. That does not necessarily mean he knows more about this team than the bulk of this board does. There is no way he's put in 1% of the time and effort this board has put into when it comes to analyzing what's wrong with our D.

It's fair to say that none of our freshmen starters would be starting at Indiana. Because freshmen shouldn't be starting at any D-1 program unless they are Charles Woodson. By the time they are juniors and seniors, this answer is likely to be quite different. This is not a talent issue, this is an age issue brought on by a depth issue. That doesn't mean we couldn't use more defensive talent.

Roh would start at 1/2 of the Big Ten schools this year. There's a good chance he'd be a starter at every Big Ten school by next year. When he's a true junior.

Mouton would start at the majority of Big Ten schools. Not tOSU. Definitely at Indiana.

RVB would start for 75% of the Big Ten schools. Definitely at Indiana.

I'll stop at 6 since I'm pretty sure if I go any higher with the numbers you'll get confused.

This board in general does not put it's head in the sand and claim that we don't have defensive issues. We have huge defensive issues. Speilman's (and your) hyperbole lack any depth and real analysis. That is in contrast to the mounds of analysis that point to the real myriad of issues we have on our D.

Anyway, while Spielman's comment was a little over-the-top, his general point is taken. We aren't very talented on defense. Honestly, I'm not sure why Van Bergen and Roh are held in such high esteem here. They've been largely invisible this season. Mouton's a guy who I do think would have benefitted from better coaching.

Anyway, can you explain why you think Van Bergen would be good enough to start for 75% of the teams in the conference when he's hardly been a factor for us? In 11 games, he has three sacks and 5.5 TFLs. Personally, I think he and Roh (who has 0.5 sacks) have been major disappointments this season.

I'm going by the UFRs and what I've seen with my eyes. I'm no Magnus, so huge grain of salt.

But he seems to do his job most of the time. In a 3-3-5 I doubt you'd see his position putting up sacks or TFLs on a regular basis. 3 sacks seems high to me actually given the way the defensive philosophy we're going with this year (passive and ineffectual).

I'm doubting he'd play at tOSU ever really. But he's the kind of player Wiscy and Iowa have made great D's out of in the past.

I could agree with that about RVB being the kind of great player Wisc., and Iowa make great Defenses but what does that say about our defensive coaching staff not being able to get that kind of great production out of them, and if its not his talent and its our scheme thats holding him back then once again what is that saying about our coaching staff if there scheme is with holding players from there full potential. I also read in another post a little above about Mouton if coached better....that again is not a good thing. By the way the last part not directed towards you just frustration sorry

is more than enough to know more about our level of talent than every single person on this board--period. In fact he attended a couple practices in person. that is enough to decide on talent level. It's way more than enough to be smarter than both you and I put together. I agree with every single sentence in his quotes. And I'll trust his word more than people on this board who have studied it.

"Before I could pull the trigger, I was hit by lightning, and bitten by a cobra."

Every great player who has ever played the game is also a great talent evaluator? Interesting perspective.

There is a difference between talent and skill. Our players are too young (and probably poorly coached) to have the necessary size and skill to be competitive in the Big Ten.

That doesn't mean they're not talented. Rivals, Scout, and ESPN would all agree that our D is more "talented" than all of the Big Ten outside of tOSU and PSU. We clearly need more talent infused into this team, but that's not the reason we're 112th in total D.

It's a ridiculous statement he made comparing our D to Indiana's bench.

His major point, which I agree with, is we have too many starters on D who should not be starters in the Big Ten. Other than Martin, Van Bergen, Mouton and Kovacs, we don't have kids who are physically ready to compete in the Big Ten.

I agree with you that they are not physically ready to compete. But I disagree with your interpretation of his claim. He claims that our players are not talented enough to be on a Big Ten defense. As if to say we should be recruiting different kids entirely, not that these kids need to grow. I guess that's really not something we can make a determination on right now, which is why I'm surprised that he goes so far with his critique.

Relative to OSU, we have no speed at LB, all of our freshman DB's would have redshirted this season, our D-line is woefully undersized, hell if we wanted to play a 4-3, who would we play on the DL? There is nobody ready to play, nobody.

The point is we just don't have depth on the d-line. Pro-style vs. spread is way different than 4-3 vs. 3-4/3-3-5 or whatever you want to call it. Would you feel better if he said "take Mike Martin out of the lineup and there's no one to fill the void?" It's pretty much the same point.

The only reason I omitted Roh, is because he is still somewhat undersized. In an ideal world Roh would be a redshirt freshaman getting spot duty in passing situations, biding his time before taking over as a starter in his 3rd season.

and the future of what will be: I think Roh, Demens, and Cam Gordon have a lot of talent. Ideally Roh wouldn't have had to play last year, and he'd be pretty damn good for a RS freshman. Kenny and Cam could have used another year as b/ups. Add back Woolfolk and Heininger and I think you have a couple more.

Courtney Avery and Carvin Johnson have shown flashes of this mysterious "defensive talent" that you speak of. Definitely potential at a lot of spots, but it's got to actually come to fruition, and who knows if that will happen, especially with a 3rd D coordinator in 4 years.

it does not give him the green light to go on talk radio to bash the defense. As a commentator for college football, Spielman should keep his extreme opinions to himself during the games and after the games.

I love Spielman even if he did play at OSU. He actually wanted to go to Michigan, but his dad wouldn't let him. Still remember him doing the rugby dive into the endzone as a Lion. Can we hire him as our DC?

I believe it was an HBO documentary narrated by Liev Schreiber in which Spielman said that he told his dad he wanted to go to Michigan and his dad said no son, you're going to Ohio State. I love those Buckeye fans who unselfishly want what's best for their children and not themselves.

Yes. And I'm sure he would have sucked had he gone to Michigan. Not that I care a whole lot, it is just annoying to hear when parents do things like that. I would be (slightly less than) equally annoyed if I heard a similar story about a Michigan fan being steered towards Michigan for the exact same reason.

I agree with what he says. We will continue to be bad on defense until the talent level rises. How that will be solved is IMO player development of kids on the roster. Talent is there, but not ready for the big stage yet.

Definitely brutally honest and harsh on some of these kids (Indiana Subs). But the scary part is, he's mostly right with everything he's saying. I enver thought about this in the way he put it "They're all coming back next year. They're the worst defense in football, are you that excited?" That made me think for a second and got me depressed...Tear